Owners Direct Account Deactivation

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
Julie123
Posts: 9
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Location: Paphos
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Owners Direct Account Deactivation

Post by Julie123 »

I thought you might like to see this email I received from OD today

ACTION REQUIRED
Your account is at risk of deactivation
Take Action

This email is to warn you that 1 of your listings are violating our marketplace standards.
It looks like some language on your property pages may encourage travellers to contact you directly and book off of HomeAway's site. This is against our Marketplace standards.
We would like to remind you that, in accordance with our terms and conditions, all bookings from OwnersDirect travellers must be processed through the OwnersDirect checkout.
Avoid using contact information such as phone numbers, urls, or social media sites
Avoid language that may encourage avoiding the service fee
Avoid encouraging travelers to book or make payments outside of the HA checkout process
Please remove such language from the 1 properties attached below by 20 September 2017. Otherwise, your account and all associated properties may be deactivated.
We will routinely check your property pages for updated language until this issue has been resolved.
Zingara
Posts: 618
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2013 8:36 am
Location: Antibes, PACA

Post by Zingara »

Me too...I am just waiting for Louis to check why i have been sent this e-mail...I am on subscription, with OL payments activated but NOT OLB. I think there's good thread on this from a few months back, but I haven't been able to locate it, if someone might find the link?

I'll update you...
Zingara
Posts: 618
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2013 8:36 am
Location: Antibes, PACA

Post by Zingara »

As of 20th September ALL listings will have to adopt on-line bookings.
No form of contact can be advertised (this e-mail refers to the telephone number in the contact information section...or elsewhere)
Renter's contact details will only be made available when they have made their first payment (via the on-line payments system).

They have the contractual situation covered with some blurb in the T+Cs that allows TA to do what they want with your advert, including modifying it / deleting (which was apparently in the contract when I renewed Dec 2016)

I have asked for an e-mail explaining it all...
Zur Alten Weinkelter
Posts: 201
Joined: Sat Aug 06, 2011 12:22 pm
Location: Moselle Valley (Mosel) Deutschland

Post by Zur Alten Weinkelter »

Me too !

both on HA & OD

i telephoned HA spoke their " Customer Support " it appears that my conversion rate from Enquiries to Bookings is below standard and that i must be asking potential guests to contact me directly to avoid paying the booking fees !!! so how do i contact the so called guest with a " crystal ball " i suppose it is nothing to do with the fact that no business is coming through their site(s ) so not booking/enquiries nothing to convert ? but they were happy to send me an e mail to give me suggestions on how to improve my listings ...oh so it is my fault ..HUH
So now they will deactivate me maybe i will get to them 1st it has been long overdue to drop them as to continue with them is it worth all the effort or will i burn my bridges so to speak ?
When it comes to wine, I tell people to invest in a good corkscrew. The best way to learn about wine is the drinking

The truth is the best German wine remains in Germany
So forget your memories of Blue Nun & Black Tower
Zur Alten Weinkelter
Posts: 201
Joined: Sat Aug 06, 2011 12:22 pm
Location: Moselle Valley (Mosel) Deutschland

Post by Zur Alten Weinkelter »

UPDATE !!

I have now been told if i do not remove the incorrect language on my listings ?????
that they will deactivate my listings as breach of their T & C 's

but when asked to speak to the originator of the e mail guess what its a computer programme
and if i have a grievance about the content the e mail i can write to the resolution team at their London office whoopee !!! :P
When it comes to wine, I tell people to invest in a good corkscrew. The best way to learn about wine is the drinking

The truth is the best German wine remains in Germany
So forget your memories of Blue Nun & Black Tower
SW31
Posts: 86
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2014 5:02 pm
Location: Haute Garonne, France

Post by SW31 »

Yep, had the same email. Apparently it's been sent to all owners. They went through my advert to check that I wasn't stating something to bypass booking through HA.

I'm not surprised. They paid a lot to purchase HA and have said they have got wind that some adverts are suggesting guests to contact owners directly for reduced rates and no fees. They will need to clamp down to minimise their losses. They're putting the onus on us contacting them and then they check each advert.

Me, I'm fed up with owners misleading people in the filters. I've seen quite a few gîtes stating they have a pool. You have to go right through the blurb to discover that the 'pool' turns out to be the municipal pool in their town. Sorry, but when a property states a pool, regardless if it's private or communist, I expect it to be on site. It's like stating it has a washing machine but you have to go to the supermarket to use their facilities. These gîtes come up the search list higher than me as they're cheaper. Well they would be. But many people, we've found, don't bother to read the details so wouldn't know until they arrived and their Gite is sans pool!
Zingara
Posts: 618
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2013 8:36 am
Location: Antibes, PACA

Post by Zingara »

Well, fall over backwards...

This arrived a short time ago, about 15 minutes after a long e-mail explaining why I had to take out any contact details etc etc:


"Dear 'Zingara',

Yesterday we encountered an error causing a number of accounts to be incorrectly identified as in violation of our Terms and Conditions. You may have received a message via email or your dashboard, warning that your account was at risk of being deactivated due to language encouraging travellers to book outside of the HomeAway system.

Please disregard these notifications, as they were shown in error. The underlying issue was quickly detected and has now been resolved.

We sincerely apologise for any confusion and inconvenience this has caused.
Best regards,
The Owners Direct team
Zingara
Posts: 618
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2013 8:36 am
Location: Antibes, PACA

Post by Zingara »

And for reference, the preceding e-mail:

Thank you for contacting the Owners Direct Customer Support Team.

Terms and conditions.

You can verify in this LINK the article I mentioned to you over the phone (10.1).

...10. Rights and obligations of HomeAway
10.1 HomeAway may change, suspend or discontinue any aspect of the Site at any time, including the layout and the availability of any Site features, database or content without any prior notice or liability...

Now, I would like to give you an overview of why we have undergone some changes, and what is our objective with this changes.

What is the service fee?

Overview
The service fee is paid by the traveller when booking through the HomeAway websites. This fee covers the cost of providing 24/7 customer support, enhanced site and mobile features for both owner and travellers, plus expanded marketing efforts to generate more exposure to global audiences. Additionally, when a traveller books and pays through Owners Direct, they are eligible for the Book with Confidence Guarantee.

Paying the fee
Travellers pay the service fee by credit card when paying through the secure Owners Direct checkout process. The service fee is only charged to the card once the booking has been accepted. The service fee is a percentage of the total amount of the reservation, excluding taxes and refundable fees. The service fee is between 5-12% for most bookings but can be above or below, based on the reservation. The percentage rate may change from time to time.

Other Property Fees
The service fee does not affect the ability of the owner to control their own rental rates and fees (e.g. pets, cleaning, or maintenance). We do recommend providing a distinct name for fees that differ from service fee to avoid confusion.

Refunding the fee
The owner does not have the ability to discount or waive the service fee amount. The only time the service fee can be refunded is when an owner uses the Cancellation Refund feature from their dashboard. However, if the reservation is not cancelled and all payments fully refunded to the traveller, the service fee will not be refunded.

Tax Implications
Owners do not pay taxes on the service fee. Sales and Use Taxes and Transient Occupancy Taxes are only due on the amount paid to the property owner related to the rental of the accommodations.

And why we have restricted information to be displayed before first payment:
How do anonymous email addresses reduce phishing?

Owners Direct protects your privacy and helps prevent spam and phishing by making the email addresses anonymous using a @messages.HomeAway.com email address (e.g. THA123456@messages.HomeAway.com) during the initial email exchange between you and interested travellers.

Anonymous email addresses hide the real email address during the initial email exchange between owners/ property managers and travellers. This protects thieves from sending multiple enquiries to get a response from an owner or property manager at which time they 'steal' the email address and start communicating with travellers directly in an attempt to have the traveller send payments to the thief.

If you have any other doubts, I'll be more than happy to provide more information if you reply to this email.

Thank you for your time and patience.
Zur Alten Weinkelter
Posts: 201
Joined: Sat Aug 06, 2011 12:22 pm
Location: Moselle Valley (Mosel) Deutschland

Post by Zur Alten Weinkelter »

My listings on both OD & HA for which i have 4 apartments have not got anything written in the advert/listing that i do not offer as i live on site and manage the apartments myself aswell as greet all the guests personally i would be mad to put something in the listing that was false

i have been with the homeaway group since 2007 first as annual subscriber then on their commission based option due to the fact of increased annual cost that almost doubled overnight
now in the last 12-18 months the amount of genuine enquiries which convert into bookings has rapidly decreased myself and other owners are now being sent these deactivation e mails

however when you manage to telephone their customer support to ask for a genuine explanation why these e mails are being sent the stories seem to differ depending on who you speak to
the person i managed to speak to accused me of receiving bookings through the so called back door as he could not understand why i was not getting bookings when i showed him the last few enquiries that did not result in bookings for example a women who wanted our 2 person ( double apartment ) for 4 persons and said “ don't worry they can sleep on the sofas “ !!! and the person who wanted to bring his 2 dogs in a 40 m squared apartment that has a no dog policy
and they wonder why i refused them ???

so when they say they paid a lot of money and investment to keep the company afloat
i too and also many owners have invested their hard earned money in making their properties suitable and comfortable to welcome guests
but when the support from companies such as HA is virtually non existent they wonder why genuine property owners are looking elsewhere to showcase their properties maybe the potential holidaymakers are doing the same and booking elsewhere ?
When it comes to wine, I tell people to invest in a good corkscrew. The best way to learn about wine is the drinking

The truth is the best German wine remains in Germany
So forget your memories of Blue Nun & Black Tower
Zur Alten Weinkelter
Posts: 201
Joined: Sat Aug 06, 2011 12:22 pm
Location: Moselle Valley (Mosel) Deutschland

Post by Zur Alten Weinkelter »

UPDATE !!

this e mail has just arrived from Homeaway !

Dear Maria,
Yesterday, an error occurred causing a number of accounts to be identified as in violation of our Terms and Conditions. You may have received an email or message in your dashboard, warning that your account was at risk of being deactivated due to language encouraging travelers to book outside of the HomeAway system.

The issue was quickly detected and is now resolved, please disregard those notifications.

We sincerely apologize for any confusion and inconvenience this has caused.
Best regards,
The HomeAway team


NO COMMENT !!!!
When it comes to wine, I tell people to invest in a good corkscrew. The best way to learn about wine is the drinking

The truth is the best German wine remains in Germany
So forget your memories of Blue Nun & Black Tower
AndrewH
Posts: 1499
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2013 1:17 pm
Location: Kefalonia, Greece
Contact:

Post by AndrewH »

Zingara wrote:As of 20th September ALL listings will have to adopt on-line bookings.
At the last count this was going to happen on renewal for subscription-listers. It looks like HA are getting desperate (too much "financial leakage" as they call it)!
Zingara
Posts: 618
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2013 8:36 am
Location: Antibes, PACA

Post by Zingara »

Good morning, Andrew: It's possible they've 'withdrawn' that dictat (presented to me over the 'phone), if they've decided the e-mail was sent in error...that was also the date we were presented with to remove the inappropriate language from our advertisements.

We shall see...
User avatar
roxytoo
Posts: 1701
Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2005 8:23 am
Location: Spain Costa Blanca

Post by roxytoo »

zingara where did you get this info from?

As of 20th September ALL listings will have to adopt on-line bookings.
Zingara
Posts: 618
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2013 8:36 am
Location: Antibes, PACA

Post by Zingara »

Roxytoo: although they didn't quote it in the e-mail they sent me, this was on the telephone at 0730, and Luis was quite definite about it (hence the e-mails some of us received quoted deactivation on 20th September?)...As I mentioned in reply to AndrewH was that I don't know if they've withdrawn that deadline, along with the email (if you follow me?)
Zingara
Posts: 618
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2013 8:36 am
Location: Antibes, PACA

Post by Zingara »

What I did find interesting (and most of you had probably picked this up already) is that, it seems if you adopt online payments prior to your subscription expiring you should get 'immediate' as opposed to post-check-in payments (in the Help section)
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